Governor Stanley’s adamant stand against the
desegregation of public schools prompted Eliza E. Fitch to write her
first letter to a governor. She wrote that “I have always been proud
of Virginia, thinking of us as one enlightened Southern state not to
be put in a class with Mississippi.” She shrewdly noted that “In the
army where desegregation was put into effect we are told the trouble
predicted by one and all simply never developed.”